Eighth Weigh In - March 20, 2009

I can't believe that it has been a month since I last updated!

I must admit that I was getting frustrated for a while. Looking back over the past few weeks, on February 28th I lost nothing and even went up .1% in body fat. That wasn't a good week. I blame that on the new lower body routine I started on Wednesday before my Friday weigh-in. I could hardly walk and I have no doubt my muscles were retaining a lot of water.

The next week I lost only one pound, but I also gained a pound of muscle. Since fat loss is what I am most interested in, that actually counts as losing 2 lbs of fat. And then last week I had a great week. I lost 7 lbs! I think it took that long for my body to adjust to the really challenging lower body workout. Of that 5 lbs was fat. This week I lost another two pounds, of which half was fat, but I maintained all of my lean mass. So I am down 28 lbs total in about 8 weeks.

I am a little frustrated with all of the weight lifting working I am doing and still losing lean muscle mass. My trainer says not to worry about it. Right now my focus should be on losing fat and trying to preserve as much lean mass as possible. The more research I do on my own I have to agree with that assessment. It is difficult to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. To gain muscle you need to eat more and lose weight you need to eat less, they are definitely in conflict with each other.